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Law - Europe: EU Legislation

Where can I find proposed legislation?

'COM docs' include proposed legislation, communications and reports.

What is a CELEX number?

A CELEX number is a unique identifier for a document in EUR-Lex.

Where can I find EU secondary legislation?

There are five types of secondary legislation:

  • Regulations - addressed to all Member States. To be applied in full and directly applicable
  • Directives - addressed to all Member States. Set an objective, but the national authority can decide how to achieve the objective within their own legal framework
  • Decisions - may be addressed to all Member States, or one Member State, or a company, or a group of individuals or one individual. Binding on the addressee and directly applicable
  • Recommendations and Opinions - are 'soft law' instruments and have no binding force. 

You can find out more about these on the Europa website.

New EU legislation

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